The Four-Man Raft/Transcript
WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW [ gunshots ] [ bird squawks ] harold: And now it's time for that show that answers the philosophical question, "if a tree falls in the forest and lands on a guy's head, "and, you know, a bunch of bees come out of the branches and right into his pants, does he make a sound?" well, the answer's "yes." believe me, I know. Anyway, here's a man who has a bunch of sounds of his own, the star of "the red green show," a man I like to call "uncle" even when he doesn't have me in the headlock, here he is, mr. Red green! Thank you, harold. Thank you, and welcome to possum lodge. I'm red green, head of this possum lodge, which is chapter 11. And you've already met my nephew harold, who's been sconned on the head by his share of trees falling in the forest. Uh, harold is actually the producer and director of the show, whatever that means. It happens to mean that when I push these buttons, this happens. [ keyboard clacking ] [ laughs ] anyway, lots of stuff going on up at the lodge this week. We're getting a brand-new four-man raft. So there's probably gonna be a lot of arguing about which four guys are gonna get to go in that first. And besides, another thing that was going on was -- a bunch of us like to just kind of work on our own cars. So we thought we'd build one of them mechanic's pits like they have at the gas station. So we thought we just would dig it. Then we all got a bunch of shovels and picks and hockey sticks, and we went out there. Actually, the way it worked was that moose thompson and helmut wintergarden were the only ones that were digging the trench. And the rest of us kind of stood there leaning on our tools. So it looked like a real professional government job. But they got her dug -- they got her dug pretty fast 'cause the ground was real soft, although hacking through the waterline took some time. But they got her all done there, and it was long enough that we could get six cars on that. And we just would straddle the ditch right up there. Just 1, 2, 3, bang, bang, bang, bang. And then we all crawled under our own vehicles and started working on them. Unfortunately, like I said, the ground was a little soft. And one side started to cave, and then all the cars started rolling over. And they all ended up right upside -- whoa, boy! What happened to the guys working under the cars? Well, the cars went so slow, you see, that a guy could actually open the driver's door and climb up over the seat and go right out the passenger door. So we ended up with six cars lying there upside down. Boy. You don't see that every day. No, no, not since moose got fired from that job valet parking. This is cool. It's like that town in texas where they got those six cadillacs buried in the ground and only their tails stick out. It's really avant-garde and très cool. Oh, yeah, and it's a major tourist attraction. I guess they must have dug their mechanic's pit in the same kind of sandy soil that we've got, eh? Yeah, I guess so. Well, let's get the show rolling, harold. Hopefully not into the ground. [ laughs ] I -- so, all righty then. [ keyboard clacking ] oh, is that raft here? Yeah. Where should I put it? How about inside a large tire? Set it on the couch there, duane. That's a raft? That's your idea of a four-man raft?! Yep. Murray's own brand. That's not a raft! That's a piece of homemade crap! That's a kindergarten science project! Well, the duct tape is a nice touch. Well, enjoy it, douglas. Let's go, duane. Hold it, murray! Hold it, duane. I'm not paying for this! Oh, well, you already have, remember? I want a refund -- with interest! Oh, that's good, douglas. I like that. But we have a policy about returning items. Oh? What's that? We don't! This is not a raft! A raft has a bow and a stern! Well, this one has lots of side. How can you call this a four-man raft?! Well, maybe it's out of a 4x4. How do you put the motor on? Well, it hangs in the middle there. I'm real impressed, murray. Calling that a raft takes lots of guts. Murray, if you value your reproductive abilities, you will get this out of here and very quickly give me back my money! Your money? [ laughs ] it's the lodge's money, douglas. Let's go, duane. Okay, murray. Hold it, murray! Forget it, douglas. Let's go, duane. Okay, murray. Hold it, duane! Okay, douglas. Ignore him, duane. Okay, murray. No one move! [ air hissing ] both: Pretty to look at, lovely to hold. But if you break it, consider it sold. That's our creed, you know? [ both laugh ] [ spoons and guitar playing ] ♪ you can learn a lot at parties ♪ ♪ as we did last night ♪ ♪ we learned that fat people aren't always jolly ♪ ♪ and you should never dare someone ♪ ♪ to throw bullets in the fire ♪ we learned from that one. ♪ we learned that alcohol and power tools don't mix ♪ ♪ and we learned that the fire department ♪ ♪ doesn't always arrive soon enough ♪ ♪ to make any tangible difference ♪ [ hammering ] this week on "handyman corner," we're gonna show you some things you can do with all of those oil drums that you have lying around your house, like everybody does. Now, we're not too bad here up at the lodge because we can use them for flotation for the dock or maybe make a couple ashtrays out of them, you know? But maybe some of you want to be more stylish 'cause you're actually concerned with what other people think. So I suggest you do something like this. You take a cold chisel and a persuader of some kind. And you just drive a hole in the end of the drum. What you have there is just an ideal piggy bank for the youngsters. [ coins clang ] that's enough. What you can do there, too, is just weld a hunk of chain on here and just hang it over the little fellow's neck, and he can go out on Halloween and collect for unicef. And once he gets filled up, of course, you can drop her on her side, and you can use it to roll the lawn. Or you can just knock the lid off the thing, and there's your college education paid for, if that's the way you care to spend your money. Another thing you can do is be getting a little chisel or a screwdriver and pry the lid off. Or you could use whatever you got in you pockets, you know? Your car keys or a bottle opener... Or a business card or whatever. [ banging ] just comes off as easy as pie, too. Okay, once you've done that, you can use the lid as a serving tray, and you can cover it all with crackers. And then you fill your oil drum with pâté. Or, if you're on a budget, just use peanut butter with anchovies in it. The guest can take a cracker... Scoop it into the -- oh, boy. Oh, that looks great, doesn't it? Okay, maybe we should have rinsed the oil out of there first. But if you're having a party and you got 3,000 guests or so coming, I'm telling you, an oil drum full of pâté is gonna just serve everybody. You're gonna run out of crackers way before you run out of pâté. And the beauty of it is with this system, that when the party's over, just pop the lid back on there and run a bead of silicone caulking around the outside, and that'll keep indefinitely without refrigeration. We've had this particular pâté since, uh... That was in the '40s, I think. And if you're good with a cutting torch, you know, you can really go to town on these units. You can cut up the oil drums into all kinds of different things. [ torch hissing ] love seats or patio furniture or some kind of a decorative awning -- just all kinds of things. You know, another idea is a bird-feeding station. You know, with one of these, you're talking about a 50-gallon bird-feeding station. You only have to fill that sucker once a year. [ explosion ] okay, so, there you got yourself a dandy bird feeder. And, you know, just as a joke, you can fill that thing up with oat bran. The birds will eat that, and they'll wish they'd gone south. But you're gonna have the best lawn on the street. Here's something else you can do with an oil drum. You can build yourself a doorbell that you can hear from any room in the house. You just get a pretty heavy, little persuader such as this, and you hang it from one of your rafters or the doorknob of your bedroom, whatever. And you have that hanging down. You line it up with an oil drum. And then you put the hammer over the door. And then when anyone arrives, it swings in, and you can really hear -- I'll show you how it works. This is gonna be the sound you're gonna hear when your guests arrive. [ air whistling ] [ clattering, glass shattering ] okay, you got to watch for the type of knot that you use on that. Okay, for this next thing now, you're gonna need a picnic table. You can buy a picnic table or you can build your own or if you have a decent chain cutter, you can get one free from a conservation area. And another thing you're gonna need is a couple of these steel rods. These are what they call reinforcing rods they use for the construction crews. But, you know, you can horse them right out of the concrete if you get there before it sets. That's how I learned all my italian swear words. And the next thing you're gonna need is what we call a hole saw. And to use that -- you're gonna punch some holes in each end of the oil drums and also into the picnic table. [ saw buzzing ] so, what you have is an industrial-strength "t" wagon. You're right, harold. You know, it does look like fred flintstone's car. Anyway, why don't we put our pâté up here? Whoa! [ grunting ] and we're all set to go serve our guests. Uh, so, remember -- until next time, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. [ clears throat ] yabba-dabba-doo! [ grunting ] [ crashing ] well, I guess we'll just eat here. [ dog barking ] hey, you get away from there! Get away from there! Get away! Get away from there! [ thunder rumbling ] "it is spring. "I plucked the petals from a flower. "she loves me. She loves me not. "she loves me. She loves me not. "I pluck another flower. "she loves me. She loves me not. "I pluck another flower. She loves me not. "another flower, and another, until there was one flower left. "she loves me. She loves me not. "she loves me. "oh, good. She loves me. The gardener, on the other hand, hates my guts." well, the situation with the lodge members' cars is still up in the air -- or, I should say, down in the ground. And the four-man raft has caused some unpleasant feelings, too. Actually, I should say there's some unpleasant smell. I mean, that rubbery odor -- boy, it's like old gym socks. The only time we get that smell is thanksgiving when eddie makes one of his pumpkin pies. Yeah, it's been going "pbht!" for about 20 minutes now. The thing's scaring me. Why doesn't douglas just, you know, write it off? What's 60 bucks? Well, my van was 60 bucks, harold. Yeah, and you were able to write off that loss, you know? Why can't douglas do the same? Well, harold, you know, it's tough for a man to admit that he's made a mistake, you know? The whole point of being a man is just to tough these things through, see them through, you know, take a stand. Show some leadership and others will follow. Well, that way, you have six cars upside down instead of just one. Basically, yes. But that way, you end up looking equally stupid with everybody else, you see? And that's okay. It's a male-pride thing, you know, something that you'll understand when you're older... And male. Oh. Okay. [ air hissing ] this is not a boat, red. I've worked this marina all my life. I've seen skiffs, ketches, everything -- you know, kayaks. This is not a boat. So it doesn't have a lot of trade-in value then. Well, if you brought me something in that was more boatlike, red. You know, like an old apple crate or an old bathtub or something. Nope, I haven't got anything like that. Well, I can give you a buck for it. Douglas paid 1,200. 1,200 what -- dollars? Oh, yeah. I can't see this particular item being worth 1,200 bucks anywhere, red. Unless there's a $1,000 bill in that tackle box or something. [ hissing continues ] you know, it boggles my mind when I look at the size of this tire, to imagine the r.V. That this would fit, this tire here. It has to be 100 feet long and 30 feet wide... Easy. Yeah, well, douglas was wondering -- maybe you could just kind of trade us even for a wooden punt. Oh, yeah, right. [ laughs ] well, an r.V. That big, you could have a spiral staircase in there. [ hissing continues ] yeah, well, I'll go tell douglas the bad news, glen. I mean, it would sit so high off the ground that you could have a basement... An actual basement. Well, uh, thanks for your time, glen. I got to get back to work. All right, red. Imagine trying to back up an r.V. That big. I mean, imagine trying to back up something 100 feet long into a parking spot at the mall. I mean, you'd need those big, huge side mirrors, you know? What -- what am I thinking? Something that big would have to come with that standard on it. You would have everything standard equipment on that thing! There would be no options. That would be a dreamboat. Well, sorry, dolores. It's just that "pie in the sky" stuff, honey. [ film projector clicking ] red: Well, call 911. It's time for "adventures with bill." uh, bill said we're gonna do some archery, so I brought a bow and a couple of arrows. But that's not the way he had in mind. He just chucked those out of there. This, I thought, was a little presumptuous. Man: Hey! That was a fitting response, I felt. What he wanted to do was he wanted to go into the woods and make our own bows and arrows just from whatever we could find in the woods. So, it's amazing how fast you can find stuff when you're filming. And I came out with what I thought was a good stick. And bill's gonna make that into some type of a bow. I mean, I don't ask because bill, he knows what he's doing. I'm just kind of, you know, poking my way along. I'm using the logic and common sense. He's using a lot of book reading in his stuff. Anyway, I got my bow done, and he got his done. A little different. His is more of a repeater, I guess was the thought there. I didn't question it, though. Now he wanted to go find some little sticks to use for the shafts of the arrows. So I saw something lying there I thought would be adequate. But, bill, you know, he's a bit of a perfectionist. He just wants just -- now, to me, that tree seemed dead. But I guess he just wanted it out of the -- I think he wanted just to get that out of the way. There -- well, but then bill's really the woodsman. But he did find something there. Yeah. He could have just got that and then -- oh, I see. Do a little plowing. And now he's back, and -- thank you, bill. Now we're gonna carve out the shafts of the -- again here with the arrow shafts, he picked one that I thought was a little -- well, I lost my temper. Anyway, we tied stones onto the shafts of the arrows, so that would be -- well, that would be the arrowhead. And bill's was pretty generous. Then we snip off the string. That's the little leaves we use for the feathers. And it was kind of fun. And bill put a target up on the tree, and it started to feel like day camp. You know, there's mine, and there's bill's. So I loaded mine up, and I gave her a try. How's that, robin hood? And now bill's gonna probably split that arrow with his. It could happen, I guess. [ sloop! ] not too likely. So we abandoned -- look at this. Now, you see, bill is... He whips that out, and the bang almost -- yikes! Now we've got enough to make bows and arrows for the whole lodge. Well, that four-man raft has really come in handy for getting the cars out of the ditch. What we do is we slide the deflated tube in underneath the cars, and then we start pumping it up, and it presses up against the roof of the car. And when she gets up to 60, 70 pounds, the car just pops right out of there and lands right on its wheels. But, of course, murray and douglas are still at each others' throats. Douglas hired a skywriter to go up and fly over the store and say, "do not shop at murray's." wa-a-a! Is that ever neat -- exposing a guy with letters 500 feet high. Yeah, but, unfortunately, the pilot bought the smoke canister at murray's store. So, you know, it misfired. And what he ended up writing was, "donut shop at murray's." so murray and duane are making a fortune selling donuts. And, of course, douglas won't admit he made a mistake, you know? Oh, yeah. Well, it's that male-pride thing, right? Yeah. See, you're lucky you don't suffer from that, like, male-ego thing. No, no, not really, no. Geez, it's too bad more men can't be like you -- you know, having nothing to be proud of. [ screeching ] is that that inner-tube thing going again? Nope, that's the call of the wild possum. The meeting is about to come to order. Come on, uncle red. Let's get down there and find out what's going on. Yeah, okay, harold. Well, so far today, we've had a car tune-up turn into an auto graveyard, and we've had a four-man raft turn into a whoopee cushion. Let's see what the lodge meeting turns into. [ screeching continues ] [ indistinct conversations ] grab that chair. He wants to start right away. Helmut, sit down. Hurry, before he gets here. Here we go. All rise. All: Quando omni flunkus, moritati. Sit down. The floor recognizes douglas hendrychuck. That man has no scruples! Well, that's probably from that hunting accident. I mean he has no ethics, red. He sold us a four-man raft that turned out to be a donut with gas. Well, you could have come down and looked at it first, but all you cared about was the price. See that? See that? That's the last thing you worry about when you buy something from me -- the price. I am ordering all the possum lodge members to boycott murray's store until I get a full refund for the raft and the skywriter. He can afford it out of donut sales. Well, that is just fine! All I ever get from you is, "why is that so expensive?" or "we can't afford that" or "why does all your stock have all these burn marks on them?" well, you are not getting a refund, and I do not care if you ever walk into my store again! Your business isn't worth keeping! You are a crook! Well, I'd rather be a crook than a skinflint! I admire people who make definite career choices. You know, ordinarily, I'd put this to a vote. But this is a special problem and it requires a special solution. A duel! [ cheers and applause ] get the fire extinguishers! [ indistinct shouting ] now, hold it! Hold it! You two guys are gonna need seconds. Duane, you like seconds. You be murray's second. Glen, you be douglas' second. Wa-a-a! Oh, man. Uh, douglas, be strong. Be brave. Be brave. All right, guys. Assume the position. Come on. Come on. Back to back. Belly to belly. That's it. Take the fire extinguishers. Now, here's how it works. You take three paces, you turn, you fire. You got it? Yeah. Yeah. All right, here we go! Here we go! One... [ cheers and applause ] oh, wow! That ought to cool them off for a while, huh? Bill, harold, get them into their seats. All right, now I call on their seconds to work out some kind of a compromise. Well, uh... If duane can cough up that $60 refund, I think I can find another raft for 40 bucks. How does that sound? We can only give you $50 'cause the other $10 was the cost on that item. Hmm. I'll tell you what, I'll give you 10 bucks for the old inner tube, and I'll throw that in, and then we're there, right? Done. Done. [ both laugh ] all right, great. What we're proposing -- just put that down, bill. What we're proposing is that murray's store is gonna give us 50 bucks back on the raft. I'm gonna throw in a sawbuck. We're gonna get another $40 from the lodge kitty, we can buy a new four-man raft off glen. All in favor? [ muffled grumbling ] [ muffled grumbling ] [ extinguisher hisses ] [ grumbling stops ] all in favor, say "aye." aye! Aye! Aye! Aye! Motioned carried. Since there's no other lodge business, right, I'm gonna call on glen here to give us a little evening's entertainment. [ cheering ] wait a minute. I'll get the lights for you. Thanks, red. Where's that screen? I got to get my screen there. You're gonna like this one, I think, douglas. Well, it's nice to see murray and duane get what's coming to them. None of their customers ever have. And douglas has learned that you get what you pay for. It's like my uncle clydesdale used to say, "if you buy the best, you'll never regret it. "but if you steal the best, you'll never regret it and still have money for a nice dinner." and that's the philosophy he maintained throughout his prison term. Anyway, if my wife is watching, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting. And I'm bringing the inner tube so we can pop your mother out of the bathtub. Until next time, on behalf of myself and harold and the whole gang up here at possum lodge, keep your stick on the ice. glen: And that's the history of the overpass. First one right there. Oh, right, this one -- can you see her? The focusing -- this is a gelding farm. For horses? Yeah. They just raise geldings. That's all they do, yeah. You got to plant them pretty deep, don't you? They're horses. They're smart enough to go to the r.V., I'll tell you that.